The Spring Wedding
by Hanna Marin
Summary: Emma and Will are getting married. Rachel is the maid of honor, and Noah Puckerman is the best man. Futurefic, 2 years after they graduate high school.
1. Chapter 1

_The room looked like Martha Stewart's dream- pretty pastel colors covered the walls and pale pink bouquets adorned the shiny wooden tables. Rachel Berry, in all her exotic glory, looked a bit out of place in the neutured, daisy-like environment. The white dresses Emma had assigned to her bridesmaids(her rationale being that she was too old, though many believed she was the most appropriately innocent, to wear white on her wedding day) matched the creamy colors in the special-members lobby of the hotel she had OCD-picked, but Rachel's only emphasized her golden skin and blue-black hair._

_She tapped her pen against her straight teeth, contemplating. She never did this. In high school, she had always outlined her essays weeks before they were due, and completed them early as well. Yet here she was, at 3 AM, her dress, makeup, hair, and everything else she could possibly need to be the maid of honor ready- except for her speech._

_This was going to be a problem. Maybe she just needed to stretch?_

_As she walked out to the balcony, she noticed there was a little tent-ish canopy outside. That would work rather well, actually. She would get to distracted by the beauty of the darkness and the gardens below. She lifted a flap and sat inside, calves splayed to the right, and shut the two flaps behind her from the hanging tent…thing._

_She hit her notepad several times, leaving angry little blue dots. She wrote "Love," hoping it would trigger something. Nothing happened, so she wrote the word again._

_"Where does it leave you? Absolutely nowhere," she finally ended up writing._

_"UGH!" she shrieked, throwing the notepad._

_She had been racking her brain for hours- days, actually- for quotes on love. Nothing from her favorite musicals seemed to fit, there was nothing she could relate to, nothing that felt right. Not only did she need to write a speech, she needed to pick a song to sing- Emma wanted a "surprise", the only area of the wedding not totally controlled. The only songs she could think of that were appropriate for a wedding were duets. Who on earth was she supposed to get to sing with her, anyway? Of course, when she was still a stupid, naiive little girl, she would've begged Finn Hudson to sing with her, but she was trying to be more selfless now. Finn was with Quinn Fabray now, just like he should be, and Rachel wouldn't be so insensitive. It would, to Rachel, just be an enjoyable musical challenge, a duet, but to Quinn it would be an unbearable display of musical chemistry between her boyfriend and his ex-flame._

_She breathed through her hands slowly, closing her eyes. She froze when she heard the balcony doors open._

_"Is someone out here?" called out a familiar voice. A voice that sounded as if it belonged to Will's best man- a best man who had apparently called in to say his flight had been delayed by the not appropriately seasonal stormy weather. Come to think of it, there were quite a few thick clouds in the sky when she had first come out here- Rachel hoped, for Emma's sake, that they cleared up to give her a perfectly lovely, sunny wedding._

_The man outside opened the tent flaps. His shoulders visibly twitched backwards in shock. _

_He found her sitting on the balcony floor, her hair in perfect tendrils, head down, staring at hands that sat in her cleanly white lap._

_"Rachel?" he asked incredulously._

_She looked up with wide, doe-colored eyes. A strand of hair brushed against the left side of her decolletage, and he found his eyes drawn to it. For some odd reason, his face burned when he had looked into her eyes, but for politeness' sake, he met her gaze again._

_"Noah," she said demurely._

_And then rain pounded down from an open sky._


	2. Chapter 2

Noah Puckerman closed the flaps behind him.

"I guess it's a good thing we're in here, since it's, like, raining and stuff. You look all ready, with your makeup and hair and dress and…everything.. It'd be a shame to get wet and have to go through that again."

He realizes he's talking too fast, just like he had been when he was first trying to woo her all those years ago. The memory blurs through his mind, the surrounding lockers muted out by Rachel, in focus and bright. "I got this for you. It's grape. I know it's your favorite because last time I tossed you a grape you licked your lips before cleaning it off." How stupid it had been to say that! As if a righteous badass like the Puckerone ever looked back after nailing a slushie victim. As if he cared enough to notice. And how she had **looked** at him…a shock so innocent it bordered on awe prettily coating her widened eyes, cute, luscious lips slightly parted in incredulity, a strawberry blush crawling up her cheeks…his 16-year-old self became hard almost instantaneously. He had been so pissed off about this, it wasn't like he was Finn, for Chrissakes, he didn't need to think of the frakkin' **mail** to keep his manhood down, he was Puck. He had everything in that vicinity under control and ready to go **when the time was right**, obviously. The time was not right at this moment, obviously. Irrationally afraid she would read his thoughts and either a) slap him across the face or b)turn around and run away from him so quickly that her short little skirt would flap up her thighs to her probably sexy underwear(well, that might not be SO bad, actually…oh, crap. He HAD to stop doing that…), he blurted out something stupid about needing help looking at the music for Glee club.

For some reason she was blushing now, too. Oh, God…

"When I said wet, I meant, you know…from the rain."

She must've thought he was exactly the same: horny as fuck, irresponsible, not focused.

"I know," she said quietly, looking down at her hands again.

He reached over her for the notepad lying on the balcony floor. She allowed herself to really look at him then. The mohawk was gone, and his head wasn't totally shaved either. His black hair curled around his ears, not emo/poet long, but not jock short either. His face was(she didn't think it was even possible, but there it was) even more chiseled than before, and stubble graced his high, tan cheekbones. The body that many girls worshipped was as buff as ever, except he was a bit thinner…she hoped he was taking care of himself. She had to bite her lip to keep back a concerned comment.

"What's this?" he asked, handing it to her.

"My sad attempt at a speech," she said.

"So…guessing it's not going that well, then."

"No, not really. I mean, I know what I'm going to say about Emma, and how she deserves to be happy and deserves love more than anyone else I know, and how she helped me when I was still depressed about my mom issues. I just don't know what to say about 'soul mates' or connections or the eternal love that's supposed to be a prerequisite for weddings, even though it's obviously not, given the divorce rate."

He laughed a little. She scowled at him.

"I don't find it particularly funny, Noah."

"No, not that. Just that…I never thought I'd see YOU not knowing what to say."

"I've been trying to minimize my word output lately. Makes what you *do* say more significant. But, anyway…it's not that I don't know what to say, actually. I know a few quotes and such, I just can't find words that I know are true, that seem…genuine."

"Maybe you just need to dig a little deeper. I have faith in you. You'll get it done, and it'll be flawless. It's what you always did at McKinley."

"We're not in McKinley anymore, but I appreciate that, Noah. Thanks. Well…since you're obviously all done, may I ask what you wrote?"

"Oh my GOD- I was supposed to WRITE something?"

"Noah!" she admonished.

He laughed again.

"Man, you're easy, Rachel."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean- God. I mean it's easy to pull your leg."

"Oh, thank God. Emma would faint if her fiance's best man lacked a speech. So…really. What did you write?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

She glared. The rain seemed to have let up a little.

"We should go back in," she said, shattering the cozy, temporary world they had built for themselves.

"Right," he admitted.

They left the tent and went inside the lounge. The electric fire had started automatically. Rachel put her hand to her head, and it came back slightly slick with rain.

"Shit. I should've waited. Do I look okay?"

That was when Noah Puckerman, badass-turned-music-therapy-major, lifted both hands. Those same hands came within a short yet charged distance of Rachel's face. The moment was suspended over what felt like eons, and Rachel only found that she had remembered the skill of breathing when his hands made their final destination: over the top of her head to smooth down her dark locks. Her dark, probably frizzy locks. His hands, that she had thought were going anywhere else. Smoothing her hair? Really? As if she was an agitated little kid?

"Perfect."

His hand may have lingered a bit longer than normal on the right side of her face, but she told herself she imagined that.


End file.
